choleric

PRONUNCIATION:

(KAHL-uhr-ik)

MEANING:

adjective:
Easily irritated or angered: hot-tempered.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin cholericus, from Greek cholerikos, from chole (bile). Ultimately
from the Indo-European root ghel- (to shine) that is also the source of words
such as yellow, gold, glimmer, gloaming, glimpse, glass, arsenic, and cholera.

USAGE:

"Continually throwing off cuttings from its mown prose, the novel delights
in word-play. Umeed is, at times, an angry photographer, `a choleric
snappeur,' who resents playing second fiddle to the brilliant spectacle,
and final demise, of Ormus and Vina: `second-fiddling while Rome burns'."
James Wood, Books: Review: The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie,
The Guardian (London, UK), Apr 3, 1999.